


you render me in a thousand details

by LiveSincerely



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, no period-typical homophobia because i said so, very self-indulgent, very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25722109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveSincerely/pseuds/LiveSincerely
Summary: Davey swallows. When he finds his voice, it comes out tremulous. “Jack, what is this?”“What is what?” Jack wipes his hands on a spare rag, then wanders closer for a better look. He gets within a couple feet of Davey, then staggers to a stop, his face going alarmingly pale. “How did you find that?”“I, uh, I knocked it off the shelf by accident,” Davey says. “Why do you have—What is this?”Jack lurches forward as if to snatch the sketchbook away from him, but stops himself mid reach—like he can’t bring himself to actually tear the pages out of Davey’s hands.“What, that?” Jack says, and it’d be a passable attempt at nonchalance if not for the nervous waiver in his voice. “That’s nothing, really. Just practice sketches, and, uh, doodles and stuff.”Or:Davey discovers a sketchbook that Jack has tucked away. It's contents are rather telling.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Comments: 30
Kudos: 175





	you render me in a thousand details

“Hey, Davey, can you grab me another can of paint outta the closet?”

Davey looks up at the sound of Jack’s voice. The man in question is perched precariously on top of a ladder, the latest backdrop for Ms. Medda’s new show set up in front of him

He places the book he'd been reading while Jack worked to the side. “What is it I’m looking for?” Davey asks, clambering to his feet.

Jack’s head turns in his direction but he doesn’t take his eyes off his painting, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he carefully adds a series of fluffy white clouds to a cheerful skyline. “The extras should be just inside the closet on the right—I need the dented can with the red stripe on the lid.”

Davey makes his way over to the tiny supply cupboard that Jack has claimed as his art closet. It’s a floor-to-ceiling collection of paint cans, canvases, brushes, and other supplies, and it never fails to amuse Davey how Jack can take one look at the mess and immediately unearth whatever item he needs for a particular project. Most of it belongs to the theater—requested by Jack but paid for by Ms. Medda—but Davey knows that Jack sometimes stores his personal pieces and supplies in there as well, if only to keep them safe from the daily mayhem of the Lodging House.

He reaches for the pull chain and a lone light bulb flickers to life. Davey takes a couple of tentative steps, squinting his eyes against the dust in the air as he scans the shelves for the can Jack had asked for, then lets out a squawk as he immediately trips over an unopened box of paint thinner.

His elbow knocks against something as he fumbles for balance and there’s a loud thunk and the flutter of paper as he sends a sketchbook full of drawings careening to the floor. Davey lets out a quiet curse, crouching down to pick up the scattered pages and tuck them back into place. 

His movements slow as he suddenly understands what he’s looking at—what he’s discovered. Because this is one of Jack’s sketchbooks, but it’s not one that Davey’s ever seen before. And the drawings inside...

Dazed, Davey wanders back into the larger room.

Jack glances back at him, one eyebrow raised. “What, did ya get lost in there? What took so long?”

Davey swallows. When he finds his voice, it comes out tremulous. “Jack, what is this?”

“What is what?” Jack wipes his hands on a spare rag, then wanders closer for a better look. He gets within a couple feet of Davey, then staggers to a stop, his face going alarmingly pale. “How did you find that?”

“I, uh, I knocked it off the shelf by accident,” Davey says. “Why do you have— _What is this_?”

Jack lurches forward as if to snatch the sketchbook away from him, but stops himself mid reach—like he can’t bring himself to actually tear the pages out of Davey’s hands. He paces in place for a moment, then takes a step back, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What, that?” Jack says, and it’d be a passable attempt at nonchalance if not for the nervous waiver in his voice. “That’s nothing, really. Just practice sketches, and, uh, doodles and stuff.”

Davey looks at him. Then he carefully opens the sketchbook to the first page. There’s a sharply inhaled breath, the tiniest twitch of the hand, but Jack makes no move to stop him and Davey takes that as permission.

He's quiet as he flips through the assortment of pages. Or maybe it’s that he’s stunned into silence. 

There are all types of drawings. Some are only outlines, vague sketches with just enough detail to be identifiable. Others are fully-worked—entire pages of careful shading and texture and blending. He’d caught a few glimpses in the dim light of the closet, and this closer look only confirms his suspicion: these are all drawings of Davey.

There’s one of him from the other day, where he’d gotten caught in a storm and came back to the Lodging House sopping wet, his clothes dripping and his hair curling up at the ends from the rain. There’s another of him on his building’s fire escape, hands wrapped around the railing and head tilted towards the stars. There’s a series of drawings that are just of his eyes, all done in various shades of blue and in a couple of different mediums, which are the only bursts of color in any of the drawings so far. Davey asleep at the table in the mess hall with his head pillowed in his arms, a pencil starting to slip from his fingers. Davey sitting on the corner of Jack’s desk at Pulitzer’s, studying his latest political cartoon. Davey with the other Newsies, their bodies drawn in hazy silhouette, Davey standing at various street corners, hawking newspapers to faceless passersby.

A few of the scenes depicted are things Davey recognizes, distinct instances that he can place in his memory. Others are more nebulous, ordinary moments in an ordinary life. He turns to a new page, this time finding a sketch of him reading an unlabeled novel, curled up in the corner of one of the dorm beds. Davey frowns, a little perplexed. Although it’s beautiful, as all of Jack’s artwork is, he can’t begin to imagine what inspired Jack to draw this particular scene. He’s not even really _doing_ anything in it—it’s just Davey being Davey.

He turns to another page and his breath catches in his throat.

It’s a drawing of him caught mid-laugh with his head thrown back, the morning sun shining brightly behind him and a slew of crisscrossing lines in the background. Davey recognizes it as a moment from a couple weeks ago, when he and Jack had made the trek across the Brooklyn Bridge for a meeting with Spot. 

Davey traces a finger gently along the broad strokes of charcoal. Jack had remembered this moment, had kept the image in his mind until he’d had a chance to commit it to paper, then rendered it in astounding detail. And Davey’s no artist, but even he can tell that this drawing must have taken Jack hours. Days even.

“Is this what you think of me?” The question falls out of his mouth, so unexpected that not even Davey had realized he was about to ask it. “Is this how you see me?”

“Whaddya mean?” Jack responds, shifting uneasily, his voice a little gruff in his discomfort. “‘S how you look.”

“ _Jack_ …” Davey trails off helplessly, unable to elaborate, unable to explain the fragile hope that’s blooming in his chest. He starts flipping through the pages again.

It’s a wash of ink and charcoal and lead, the occasional flash of blue, but all of him. Davey pauses on one particular page, which features a drawing of him from the shoulders up with his eyes rendered in vivid color.

Colored pencils are expensive. Paint even more so. Davey imagines Jack in an art shop, imagines him hunting through the rows of supplies for _just the right shade_ of blue with the same determination that made him start up a strike, deciding that this color is worth handing over some precious amount of his hard-earned paycheck… Davey’s heart starts beating frantically in his ears.

“These are beautiful,” Davey whispers hoarsely. “The way you’ve drawn me… you’ve made me look beautiful.”

Jack’s eyes dart here and there. Davey gets the sense that he’s looking for the ‘right’ way to respond to this statement.

“...I don’t hafta make you look beautiful, Davey,” Jack eventually says, scrubbing a hand along the back of his neck. “You already are—I just draw what I see.”

Davey calmly sets the sketchbook down on the nearest bit of clean, flat surface. Then he steps forward, grabs Jack by the straps of his paint smock, and kisses him.

There’s a split-second where Jack freezes, startled. Then he groans somewhere deep in his chest, wrapping his arms around Davey’s waist to draw him even closer, and the press of his lips against Davey’s is deep and soft and wonderful.

It’s Jack who pulls away first, moving back all of a hair’s breadth, his eyes flitting across Davey’s face like he’s savoring every detail of his expression—like he’s perfectly content to just look at him.

It’s only now that Davey realizes the significance of that gaze: Jack looks at him like he can’t believe his eyes, like he’s something out of his wildest dreams, and he cups Davey’s face between his hands with aching tenderness, like he’s something to be _cherished_. Davey can only press up into that embrace, can only hold Jack close and hope that he understands, that Jack sees the emotion in his eyes the way he sees so much of Davey’s _everything_. 

But there’s one question he needs answered. “Why?”

Jack leans in and presses a kiss to Davey’s temple. “It’s just… you have _so much_ to you, Davey. No drawin’ could ever be all of you. But that didn’t stop me from tryin’.”

A kiss on the high point of his cheek. “And once I got started, I couldn’t stop. I would see you sittin' somewhere, anywhere, laughin' or sleepin' or shoutin' and— and you just _buzz_ behind my eyes and I can’t get it to stop unless I grab a pen and some paper and sketch out whatever picture of you I got in my head.”

A kiss right at the corner of Davey’s mouth. “And I couldn’t never show ‘em to nobody, couldn’t risk anyone seeing ‘cause there’s too much of my heart in ‘em and I couldn’t—”

Davey lifts up and kisses him again: slowly, reverently. He whispers into the seam of Jack’s lips, “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Come hang out with me on tumblr @livesincerely <3


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